Transcript
Brian
Hi, and welcome to the Somatic Coaching Academy podcast. Here we are for episode 100. Finally, we made it to 100.
Can you imagine? We’ve been sitting here, we sat next to each other 100 times.
Ani
Yeah, 100 coffee breaths. I used to make fun of Brian, especially when we were first recording that we have to sit so close to each other to do this podcast, that when he would come with coffee breath, I thought I was going to die, but I made it 100 times.
Brian
You made it, and I love the coffee.
Ani
I know you do.
Brian
Half-caffeinated, under-caffeinated, just enough, just enough. All right, here we are for episode 100. This is pretty cool.
Ani
You’re looking pretty good for 100, Brian.
Brian
Yeah, so are you, so are you.
Ani
Thank you.
Brian
So, Somatic Coaching Academy is looking pretty good.
Ani
Yeah, it definitely is.
Brian
Awesome. So, today, what are we chatting about today? This is kind of a cool topic.
Ani
Yes.
Brian
Yep. So, how do I compromise? I paused right there because I knew your eye was going to twitch when I said that, but you actually let out a breath of something.
It wasn’t fresh air.
Ani
Start again.
Brian
Okay. How do I compromise without feeling like I’m giving up too much of myself?
Ani
I’m so glad we’re talking about this.
Brian
Yeah. I remember when we first met and we combined our businesses, I think one of the first memorable things I heard you say was, I hate to compromise. And I thought to myself, who did I just get into business with?
Did I say that? Yes. You’re very, just kind of like you are now.
This whole topic of compromise really gets your hackles up. And I was like, oh, this is going to be interesting because I grew up on compromise. Did you?
Right? And I’m not saying that was a good thing or a bad thing, by the way. I’m not going to defend compromising, but I grew up compromising a lot.
Ani
Why?
Brian
Of, well, I mean, just where I was in the birth order. Middle child. Middle child, the situation, just the life situations, right?
I compromised a lot of myself, my values, what I wanted, all that kind of stuff. Keep the peace. Yeah.
All that stuff. Yeah. I’m an only child.
I remember. Yeah. So when I remember when we met and you said, hey, compromise, I’m like, uh-oh.
Because- And yet here we are. Here we are. Right?
Ani
13, 14 years later.
Brian
I’ve learned a lot. I’ve learned a lot.
Ani
I thought you were going to tell the story about one of the first therapists that we had. We tried therapy a few times. Do you remember?
Yeah. Yeah. And we tried a new therapist and it was session one, five minutes in, I think after she said, hi, how are you?
My name is, and tell me where you live. And then she said something about how you’re going to have to compromise. And I was like, that’s it.
She’s fired.
Brian
We’re done. We’re done. Bye-bye.
Okay. And I was like, wait a second. I want Ani to learn to compromise.
I was like, nope. Wasn’t going to work. Okay.
So we got to go to the dictionary here to start with, right? Because what are we talking about when we talk about compromise?
Ani
It would be the Somatic Coaching Academy without a dictionary reference.
Brian
And I’m sure we have bell curve of listeners. Some are muting us right now going, I don’t care about the definition. And there’s others that are like, I can’t wait for the definition.
Brian’s got the definition. Oh, yay. Yeah.
So it’s okay. All right. So here we go.
Definition is very telling actually, when it comes to the idea of compromise.
Ani
Deep breath already.
Brian
Okay. So in agreement or settlement of a dispute that is reached by each side making concessions.
Ani
This is so hard to listen to, Brian.
Brian
Okay. So that’s step one of the definition.
Ani
Okay.
Brian
Another one is kind of the same theme. Settle a dispute by mutual concessions.
Ani
Same thing.
Brian
Same thing.
Ani
Concessions. Okay.
Brian
Oh, and then this last one was like really like a… Accept standards that are lower than is desirable.
Ani
See, you know why I can’t compromise now, right? Like excellence is a value of mine and I’m not going to make concessions for excellence. This is like, I will not do it.
But of course, the title of this episode is how do I compromise this without feeling. So I have a feeling that we’re going to talk about not compromising.
Brian
Well, actually, we are actually going to kind of debunk compromise here for a second and show that there’s really no way to win when you experience compromise.
Ani
Because it means everybody has to give something up.
Brian
Exactly. So yeah. So like the compromise idea is, I think a lot of people talk about wanting to compromise to your point.
A lot of couples work in therapy talks about compromise, right? We talk about compromise, all those kinds of things. So we need to flush this out first to kind of talk about how compromise doesn’t work, actually.
Ani
Well, can we talk about why people think they want to compromise? Why do you think they want to compromise?
Brian
Well, I think people want to compromise to avoid a fight.
Ani
Sure.
Brian
Not rock the boat. Just like get on with it, get through with it. I think it’s just for a lot of people, at least in my personal experiences, the reason I compromised myself, accepted lower standards, was just to avoid more pain.
Ani
Oh, interesting. That makes sense, to avoid more pain.
Brian
More perceived pain.
Ani
Yeah, right.
Brian
Because it’s really perceived. Because when you get in a habit of compromising, what you do is you set up a cycle of more pain, actually. Because you’re accepting lower and lower standards, which is going to actually in the long run create more pain.
So what you’re doing when you compromise is you’re avoiding short-term pain, but you’re actually setting up longer-term pain.
Ani
My perspective on compromise used to be that if we could compromise, we could both get what we wanted, but that never seemed to happen because compromise inherently does not allow us to completely get what we want. It sets up this perpetual disappointment, which by the way, I’m programmed to have disappointment. That was a program I needed to keep running in my subconscious.
Expecting that both of us were going to get what we wanted during a compromise actually allowed me to continue my conditioned disappointment.
Brian
Do you think that’s why you were so reflexively against compromise? I do. Is it because it would set you up for disappointment?
Ani
I think by the time I got together with you, I’m in my mid-30s. I’ve already had life kind of slap me around a little bit, knock me off my pedestal. I think at that point in my life, I was really taking a stand for myself to have more of what I wanted.
I think I had been taking care of other people and bowing down to what other people wanted and doing what other people wanted and following other people’s leads for a long time. I was ready to take more of a stand for what I wanted. I think that’s part of the reason I was so defended against it.
Brian
So just compromise from a relational kind of – it’s all relational. Compromise is either you’re compromising between two people. You could be compromising between two organizations.
You could be compromising between yourself and the external circumstances. So compromise always includes kind of two of something, at least two of something. I think what we’re really fleshing out here, Ani, is that compromise is always about accepting a lower standard or conceding something, which means a loss.
So compromise, if we’re seeking compromise, and really what we’re always doing is we’re seeking a lose-lose.
Ani
Well, the thing is that, yeah, that doesn’t go along with the natural laws is the thing because the natural laws say that there’s always an opportunity. So just to use the lose-lose scenario and another kind of opposite experience is win-win, if there’s an opportunity, there must always be a win. And I can’t possibly have a win where there’s not a win for you.
It just doesn’t go along with the natural laws. There must always be a win-win solution everywhere.
Brian
Yes. Yeah. So I just kind of pull this back for a second because this can get really kind of- Deep quick.
Deep quick, right? So we can look at situations where there are lose-lose situations. And I think that’s when we’re seeking mutual compromise.
That’s actually what we’re seeking. We’re seeking for both parties to give up something. And I think compromise in that regard works, actually doesn’t work, but works kind of when both parties are willing to give up something of the same value.
Ani
Of the same value. That’s very well said.
Brian
Because if you’re seeking compromise, but then nobody likes to lose, by the way. So if you’re in a negotiation or, and you could be negotiating between yourself and yourself, by the way, right? Or yourself and somebody else or yourself in the environment or yourself in the world.
But if both sides have to be willing to give up something the same value, if they don’t, then you have lose and lose not so much, which actually almost becomes like a win-lose, which sets up resentment and all that kind of stuff. So I think as soon as we start to even see compromise at all, we’re actually setting ourselves up for a problem.
Ani
Agree.
Brian
Because again, to your point, it’s not based in the natural laws.
Ani
Right. So there’s a different way to perceive going about having a, what do we say, conflict or disagreement or misunderstanding or something like that. There’s another way to perceive that event right off the bat.
And that would be that it’s an opportunity. Yeah. First of all.
And as soon as that is the perception, you start to set yourself up for the natural laws to be at play.
Brian
Yeah.
Ani
So you see it as an opportunity and then you start to, and then you can start to see how the laws go in it to be available to the information that there must be a win-win solution.
Brian
Yeah. So there must be a solution where both parties gain something.
Ani
Right.
Brian
Okay. So both parties gain something.
Ani
So now we’re talking about gain instead of loss. And I also want to bring up as we’re talking about win-win, that it’s never just a win-win. It’s always a win-win-win.
Brian
Well, let’s pause for a second there. Okay. Because it really comes to how you decide to do this.
Ani
Okay.
Brian
I actually think there’s limitations to win-win.
Ani
Say more.
Brian
Okay. To just the bilateral win-win.
Ani
Okay.
Brian
There’s actually limitations to that also. Because if we’re in a win-win or a gain-gain situation, right? So you have win-lose or gain-loss kind of thing.
Win is a gain essentially. People are thinking they’re gaining something.
Ani
Right.
Brian
So you can go into a situation where you have two parties. And even if both parties agree they want to pursue a win-win or a gain-gain, because they don’t always. I’ve worked with a client who had a very difficult situation with another party and he wanted to seek a win-win.
The other party didn’t.
Ani
Right.
Brian
The other party wanted him to lose. Right. So they were not interested in a win-win.
Ani
Sure.
Brian
Right. They were interested in him conceding and them winning. So you got to kind of find how to navigate all that.
It’s a whole different world. But let’s assume that both parties decide that they want to pursue a win-win or a gain-gain. Now there also must be a perception that both parties gain the same thing in value.
Because if we’re in a negotiation and we both say, yes, win-win, but then I perceive you gained more than I did, that’s also going to breed resentment. That becomes a win-lose.
Ani
So how do you solve for the fact that the other person might not have the same perspective as you?
Brian
That gets a little more kind of dicey. If they don’t want a win-win solution, then the best way to perceive from there is for you to hold the possibility of something gaining for everyone and hold the possibility that they may see it at some point in time. Not try to take it away from them, but also offer it to them.
But then they have a choice whether or not they take it, but don’t let that change how you proceed in the win-win. How you proceed in seeing the gain that you can get from it.
Ani
I think of it like allowing myself to have the perception that I want to have, which is that there is always a win-win and there is a win there for them, even if they choose not to see it, and holding the space that it exists, which I think is saying the same thing that you’re saying, just in a different way.
Brian
I believe we’re saying the same thing.
Ani
Different way. Yeah. Holding the space.
Brian
So when there’s that difference, and it does take a little bit, maybe even a lot of bit of work on a person’s behalf to really understand what is it that they actually want to gain? Because sometimes when we’re in a situation like that, we think we know what we want to gain. And even when we think we gained that thing, we’re still not happy about it.
Go back to last week’s podcast about listening to happiness or contentment. But the idea is, what is it that you really want? And sometimes you have to get deeper in underneath some of those motivators to help people understand what is it that you really want?
Ani
Well, we may or may not understand what we really want. We also may not be taking the time to ask the other person what they want, which I see all the time when I ask clients about, are you saying this is a win-win? Where’s the win-win?
And they haven’t even considered or asked or anything the other person what they want because they’re so busy being defended.
Brian
Yeah. So let’s just back up the bus here for a second. So far, we’ve talked about mutual compromise is when there’s a situation where you have two parties and they both agree to lose-lose.
Now that’s in perception, by the way, because even when you’re losing something, you’re also must be gaining something because life is whole like that.
Ani
No.
Brian
You could also say, hey, I want to have a win-win solution, but the other party doesn’t. And then you kind of address it the way we just talked about. You have to hold the possibility that there’s win-win possible for everyone.
You hold it out there. If the other party doesn’t want to actually engage in that, then that’s their choice. But don’t let that stop you from engaging in the win and also seeing for them the possibility that’s there for them.
Ani
And that could be a win for them to say that they don’t want to see the win, because maybe for them, part of their win is standing up for themselves and empowering themselves.
Brian
It’s got to be there somewhere.
Ani
Right.
Brian
So you have that. Okay. And then you have the level where you may have two parties actually both want to find a win-win solution for things.
And in that case, now you have to ask yourself, do both parties feel like they are gaining equitably? Because if they don’t feel like they gain the same, then that won’t breed resentment and actually turns into a win-lose. So what do we do about that?
This is kind of a hierarchy, by the way, too, of development with these things. So what do we do about that? Well, you’ve actually already mentioned it, Ani.
We always go to win-win-win. So when we open up the dynamic that it’s never just, it’s never ever, ever just two. It’s always more than two, at least three people.
So you and I could be in a negotiation, but then we ask ourselves, well, how does that affect the people around us? How does that affect our kids? How does that affect our neighbors?
How does that affect our parents? How does that affect our business or whatever? There’s always at least one additional party.
Now, if we come from a perspective that it’s win-win-win or gain-gain-gain, and we ask ourselves, how does every party gain? What that does in the psyche is it diffuses that bilateral comparison of you won more than I won, because now we have a third or fourth or fifth party that we’re also considering. And for some reason, what happens inside the psyche is we actually can’t even keep track of the equitability of that anymore.
And it really diffuses all the attachment to that, again, inequitable, perceived inequitability that can lead to resentment.
Ani
Yeah, that makes sense.
Brian
What do you think of that?
Ani
I think that’s all really interesting and deep and complex. And I usually prefer to think about it like a win-win-win all the time. And if somebody wants to meet me there, great.
And if they don’t, okay. But I know it’s there and they can or don’t have to go with me.
Brian
Yeah. So talk about the win-win-win for you. When you see, you think about it that way all the time.
Ani
I do.
Brian
How does that work for you? When you’re always thinking about it, what’s going on?
Ani
I think for me, having that perspective, I recognize that when the conversation looks like it’s not there, because it looks like there’s some bumps or conflict or something, then I need to ask more questions because I don’t have enough information about what the other person’s trying to accomplish or whatever. And I don’t even need to figure it out. It figures it out on its own.
But I need to ask more questions and not assume that I know exactly what’s going on. And just that, I think openness starts to help the other person see that I’m coming from a place where I really care and considerate. And it changes the whole dynamic.
Brian
Yeah. When you’re asking the person you’re negotiating with or the other side of the equation, which could be again within yourself, you could be negotiating with yourself, is what would be a win for you? What would be a gain for you?
Ani
Exactly. And then bringing that third way in, for me, again, approaching it as a win-win-win all the time. Sometimes it wiggles out when you consider the third win.
It just makes the solution really obvious.
Brian
Yeah. And sometimes you have to think about it because the decisions we make, we always take this approach of how is it going to be a win for us and for whoever else that is and for our whole community. We’re always asking that question.
Ani
It’s not like there’s never going to be an emotion that… There’s never emotions, by the way, because especially with me around, sometimes I’m going to have an emotion show up. And that gives me an opportunity to do my own deconditioning around whatever it is that’s standing in my way from really living the laws and being the person I want to be.
And that’s fine. It’s not like it all happens instantaneously all the time because I might need to work with my beliefs and stuff. I think…
You know what was occurring to me when you were reading the definition of compromise was this thing about loss. And I think one of the funny things is when you approach life from a win-win, there’s of course a losing of something too. But I think the losing of something is actually of limiting beliefs.
You allow yourself to, instead of losing a thing or a circumstance, you allow yourself to lose a limitation so you can step into a higher level of consciousness.
Brian
Yeah. So do you mean a win-win-win or a win-win? Because you just said when you allow yourself to approach from a win-win, did you mean the two or the three?
Ani
Brian, I know you’re nutting it down, but for me, I don’t think about it like that because to me, it’s always a win-win-win. But there’s the opportunity to let go of, rather than lose, I think say let go of a limiting belief about myself or about the world.
Brian
Yeah. Right on board with that. And so I’m glad you mentioned the laws, the natural laws and universal laws because in this evolution of moving from mutual concession, which is lose-lose to win-lose to win-win to win-win-win is that the next evolution of this is to realize that winning is an illusion anyway.
Ani
Completely.
Brian
Right. So this whole thing we’ve been talking about forever long, we’ve been talking about this about winning and losing. The universal truth is that winning is just an illusion anyway.
Like there actually is no winning because as soon as you focus on winning, you automatically also focus on losing because you’re living in the duality. Right? So when we live in a world of duality, as soon as we start focusing on one side of that duality, we automatically get the other side of the duality.
So if you go back to last week’s podcast again, as soon as you start focusing on happy, you can’t not focus on sad. I mean, because it’s a part of it. So when we transcend the duality, when we transcend the duality, you realize that winning is just an illusion.
Winning is an illusion because all results, all manifestations, everything that we create essentially arises from a field of infinite possibility.
Ani
And everything grows and then everything returns.
Brian
Yeah. So the winning is just an illusion anyway. So if you can stretch yourself or want to or imagine about or meditate on or whatever, kind of stretching into that field of unified potential beyond duality, you’ll realize that we’re just all here having experience.
Ani
And I think it’s really valuable to have all of the conversation that we had today, because to just try to sit on your cushion and meditate your way to winning is an illusion when you really don’t feel like it’s an illusion, right? When you really are attached to something that’s happening, there’s work to be done there. So go through the progression, try on all of the different aspects, because there’s an opportunity there not to win, not to lose, but just to experience life and growth.
Brian
Yeah, that’s it. So if you got something out of today, please send us a note, leave a comment.
Ani
Review, share with your friends, all that stuff. Share with somebody, all that stuff. We love that you’re listening.
Thanks so much for joining us.
Brian
Let us know what you thought about episode 100.
Ani
- We’ll see you on the other side of 100 at 101 next time.
Brian
Thanks a lot.
Ani
Bye.
